Gold
by princesswingnut
Summary: Rosalie Hale is a rising star in the 90s New York fashion scene, modeling, partying, trying to figure out what it is that her life is missing. Turns out it’s difficult to tell a vampire from a runway model. Eventual Rosalie/Emmett.
1. Chapter 1

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is not officially a part of the Compass Points series, just a side project while I prepare for "West". I'm just curious about Rosalie, mostly—I wanted to try writing her. I'm sticking to canon on this story, except for one rather significant detail. I'm moving it up sixty years. For example, events that were supposed to take place in 1935 will now be taking place in 1995. So really I guess it's not canon at all…it's really just AU :). Well, whatever. I'm just going to write stuff now :) :).

---

Brooke paused with the eyeliner pencil half an inch from my eye, and I drummed my fingers impatiently on the chair, willing myself not to blink. "Is there a _problem?_" I demanded. Good thing my eyes couldn't water.

"No," Brooke said. "No problem. It's just—I could swear your eyes were a different color last week."

"Yeah," I said vaguely. "They—change. They're hazel. That's why." Damn. I'd gone too long without eating again. I was going to have to make a run out to the lodge tomorrow, or before I knew it I would lose control, start slaying hairstylists left and right.

Brooke sighed quietly and switched eyeliners, making it clear in her nice way that I had made her life just that much harder. "This will match better. It's a good thing I even _have _it, I've never seen your eyes this color before. They're like toffee, or something. Something close to that color that toffee is, in Heath bars and stuff. Nick, what color would you say this is?"

"I don't know." Nick was really not interested in playing guessing games, busy looping the cord of the curling iron around my chair. I was supposed to have moved on to hair a good five minutes ago—it seemed that he'd decided to come to me. "Gold? Why, do we care?"

"I'm sure _you _don't, it's not like her _hair's _changed colors," Brooke fretted. "You would notice if she woke up one day and her hair was black, wouldn't you?"

"Brooke, I have no idea what you're on about," Nick said with admirable calm, considering the situation. I could hear Mitch working his way back to us, already catching the strident, tropical-bird tones of our lovely backstage manager under stress. "Are you almost done? Watch the cord!"

I caught the curling iron as it fell, knocked off the chair by the swing of Brooke's hip. It wasn't exactly hard for me, and it didn't hurt when I caught it by the barrel, but I dropped it quickly back onto the counter anyway. _"Rose!_" Nick yelped. "Are you—did that—let me see your hand, are you burned? Are you all right?" _Am I going to be fired because the headlining model of the first fall show just lost all the skin on her palm? _I couldn't hear thoughts like Edward did, not officially, but these people weren't exactly hard to read.

"I'm _fine, _Nick," I said, holding up my perfect, unblemished hand for him. "I didn't touch the metal."

"Are you sure?" he frowned. "I thought I saw—"

"Touch the metal of what?" Mitch burst between us with panic high in his voice, curly-haired and wide-mouthed and with a nose that you could plow a wheat field with. He swung it like a weapon, used his entire face and body to slice things pieces. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened," I assured him as he muscled Brooke out, leaving her standing helplessly two feet away, holding the liner pencil at an angle that meant she _really _had some further adjustments to make, thank you very much. "I'm fine."

"You are _not _fine!" It was surprising he had such a good head of hair, really it was. One would think he'd have pulled it all out by now. "You're going too slow! You're taking too long! Do you know you have to be out there in twenty minutes? You have to walk onto that runway in twenty minutes, Rosalie, you're opening the show and you haven't even been to wardrobe yet! Do you know that—"

"Mitch," I said, and I used my best ice-queen voice, low and humming menace. I didn't like to be yelled at.

His ranting skidded to a halt, words cut off as suddenly as if I'd hit him. I _wish. _"Yes?" he said in the small, careful voice that he only used with me.

"It's going to be fine," I said coldly. "I'm going to finish hair, and then I'm going to get my dress on, and I will be standing at the runway in the instant that the lights go up. Just like always."

"Okay," he said. Calmed down and intimidated.

"And get me a coffee," I said. "Shoo."

I didn't even want the coffee—it wasn't exactly like I needed it. I just wanted him to leave, I had _things _to do. Maybe most of these models needed a manager to lean over them and yell at them to hurry, maybe they needed someone to keep them in line. But not me. Did he not know I was Rosalie Hale? Did he not know who I _was?_

Nick watched in awe as Mitch slunk away, off to yell at someone who was willing to be yelled at. Nick was new. He didn't know how things worked here. "You just shooed him," he said. "I can't believe you just shooed him."

"Shut up," I snapped. I was in a bad mood—which was actually perfect for walking the runway, so hey. All I needed was the dress.

---

I'm sure most runway models couldn't see the audience. There were a lot of lights, there was a lot of brightness directed right onto you, people wanted to _see _you. If that meant that you couldn't see them back, then, well. They weren't all that concerned. They weren't exactly interested in looking you in the eyes.

Well, the joke was on them, because I could see every face in that crowd. I had these supernatural eyes, and they did more for me than make me look pretty. I could see straight through those spotlights, I could see the people I was walking toward as I hit the length of that catwalk. Usually I looked for Gianni Versace—he was my patron, he was my meal ticket. He was the one who'd stopped me on Fifth Avenue one day and told me that he wanted me now. I was used to people stopping me. I was used to people turning when I walked past, dropping things, causing traffic accidents, I was _used _to people telling me how beautiful I was. He was just the first person who had told me what he intended to do about it.

He was one of the only people that I actually liked, in—well, in the entire city. He was smart, he was interesting, and good _Lord _if he didn't make some beautiful dresses. I found him in the first row and I winked at him—quickly, just as I turned at the end of the runway. I might catch it from Mitch later for that one, but Gianni's smirk as I whipped around was all I needed to see. Keep him happy. That was all I needed. It was hard for me because Gianni was as gay as they came, so I couldn't employ my usual techniques, but as long as he thought I was funny and I looked good in his clothes, I was going to have a job here.

It wasn't like I was ever going to get old. I still wasn't sure how I was going to sell that one—hey, look, it's thirty years later and I look exactly the same!—but at least I wasn't crowding the other girls at the mirror, searching my skin for deadly wrinkles and lines.

I passed another girl—Kayla, Kaitlin, whatever her name was—and she had to step quickly to the side as I came through, I was _not _going to move out of the way for _her. _It wasn't like I was out to knock girls off the runway or anything, but please. Come on. Coming through here.

Right before I hit backstage, I saw a face that I hadn't been looking for. Sharp and angular, contrasted dark and pale with those eyes that punched into me from ten feet away. I actually missed a step, recovering my stride as I walked past him, trying to keep from staring.

I guess I should have expected it. I was almost asking for it. I'd just up and decided to be an international supermodel, and expected that no one would _notice? _Well, I didn't care. I was having fun. People dressed me in beautiful clothes, and did my hair for me, and told me I was beautiful all the time. I _liked _it here. And if the Volturi wanted to send someone to stop me? Well.

I was going to have something to say about that.


	2. Chapter 2

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Slight drug reference in this chapter—just as a heads-up, I wouldn't want to spring anything on you guys :).

---

I tried to avoid Dimitri on my way out of the building. I thought about which entrances he would know about, which doors he might not check, but really there wasn't much of a chance. I was a vampire, and he was a vampire. We knew how to find each other. And this was _Dimitri, _after all, the Volturi tracker. I wasn't going to give him the slip just by going out the back door.

But of course I could hope. I could hope, right until the moment when I walked out that back door and found him waiting for me there, one leg propped up on the wall behind him, hands cupped over a just-lit cigarette.

"Nice," I said, putting my hands on my hips, making myself bigger, more angular. Scarier. "And what is that cigarette doing for you, James Dean?"

"Nothing," he smiled at me, sliding his lighter back into his pocket. "Fantastic, isn't it? None of the health risks."

"None of the benefits, either," I pointed out. "You're not even getting any nicotine, and you look stupid, too."

"Give me a break," he said, pushing off the wall, sauntering toward me with that mercury grace that all vampires had. Of course, not all of us had this much of it. "It's a habit. It's nice to see you, Rosalie."

"Wish I could say the same," I said. We'd met before, when I'd done the vampire version of backpacking across Europe. _Finding _myself. Looking for self-actualization, because that's what you do when you backpack Europe. Dimitri had made all of that significantly harder. "I assume you've got something to say, Dimitri." 

"What do you think I'm here to say?"

"Whatever it is, you've got ten seconds to say it," I said, crossing my arms. I was annoyed, because actually I had a very good idea of what he was here for, and I didn't like it. Plus, it was humid outside, and my eye makeup was starting to run. "Ten. Nine."

"You seem to be a little overexposed these days, _mia stella,_" he said, finally getting to the point. "The Volturi weren't too happy to see you in Italian _Vogue_."

"A _Vogue _cover is a _Vogue _cover," I said proudly. "I wasn't exactly going to pass it up. It's very prestigious."

"It's also very dangerous," he warned, and I was sure by the way he looked at me that the danger wasn't coming from the humans.

"I'm very careful," I said defensively. "No one touches me for more than a few minutes, I never take jobs during the daytime, and it's not like models are _expected _to eat. I fit right in."

"The Volturi don't like it," he maintained. "We aren't supposed to be this—high-profile. It makes them nervous."

"So get them some stress medication," I suggested. "I like it. I'm not going to stop."

He looked at me for a minute, consideringly, his head tipped slightly to the side. "I'll tell you what," he said finally, dropping his cigarette and stepping on it, smudging damp ash across the pavement. There were pieces of ash still lit, glowing like half-dead fireflies, but he saw those, too, and smashed them with the heel of his shoe. Nothing glowing when he picked his foot up. "Think about it."

---

I'm sure Karina thought her after-party was different—after all, the music was quieter, the furniture looked different, and the drinks were all lined up by size on the bar and lit with different colors so that the alcohol was shot through with hot blues and pinks. I'm sure she'd put a lot of thought and effort into making this party _different. _She shouldn't have bothered. They were always the same.

Same slowly pulsing bodies. Same post-catwalk euphoria. Same loud drunks, same angry drunks, same drunks bent over the wastebasket with their hair fanning beautifully around them, shielding us from the sight of them throwing up everything in their thin, bony bodies. The hidden charms of the fashion world. Lovely.

I picked my way carefully between two surprising and rather inappropriate couples, scanning the room for something that wasn't boring. I never had anything to do when I got off the runway. It wasn't like I had a boyfriend or a family I could go home to. Well, all right, I had a family, but they were busy being hermits in New York, and I really wasn't interested in joining them. I'd had a little much of family life, for now, and a little much of Edward especially. This was a better fit—I just wished I always knew what I was doing.

"Rosalie!" I hardly recognized my name, it was so slurred coming out of Isaac's mouth. He was a male model who'd been the circuit with me since last spring, black hair, fairly non-boring. Strange because he was clearly hammered, but I didn't see any empty glasses lying around. Then I spotted the empty syringe lying by his knee, and the girl next to him tying off her upper arm with his belt. Of course. I'd forgotten how cool heroin was lately. "Rosalie, come on. Sit down," he was tugging on the side of my dress, picking up another syringe that was full and dark golden brown. "You want some?"

Just out of pure curiosity, and provoked by the sight of Dimitri with a cigarette, I sat down with them and took the needle between my finger and thumb. "Here, you need this," he told me, fumbling with the belt on the girl's arm.

I ignored him and plunged the needle straight into my arm—or at least, plunged it right to my skin, where it snapped immediately, breaking off at the base. Brown liquid oozed out over the break, spreading to my fingers and wrist, and I pulled my hand back instantly to avoid getting any on my dress. "Damn," I swore quietly.

"Hey!" Isaac objected blearily. "You're supposed to—!"

"Forget it," I said, tossing the syringe away and standing, disgusted. Looked like it was going to be just another boring night.

---

Security wasn't all that good at the Central Park Zoo. I suppose that was understandable—I mean, what, was somebody was going to steal the elephants? Unless there was some kind of international zoo-poaching ring that I wasn't aware of, low security was understandable.

It certainly made _my _life a lot easier. I came here quite often—because even in the fashion world, no one parties _all _night. Humans need some sleep—and so when they slept, I had to go places. Usually here.

There were four night guards, and I knew them all on sight—Alex, Andre, Emmett, and Dan. They were easy enough to avoid once you memorized their routes, and anyway it wasn't like I was wandering around. I just wanted to see the polar bears.

I sat down on the bench in front of the glass, my heels tapping small noises in the hollow emptiness of the room. The polar bears were moving slowly, padding about their predesigned caves with a sleepy, muted menace. As I sat down, I saw the female's head swing toward me—her name was Ida, and she was usually the more active of the two, but today she just looked away again and kept walking over to her mate.

I had heard once that they were the most naturally vicious animals in the world. Whoever had come up with _that _statistic clearly hadn't known about vampires—but even vampires excluded, I had to admit they didn't look all that vicious. Mostly what they seemed to do was lie around on the rocks, monotony broken up by the occasional swim. Unlike most of the zoo's patrons, though, I had actually seen polar bears in their natural habitat, though, up in the Arctic Circle, and they _had _seemed quite a bit more vicious then. They had seemed like a thing that could kill you. These polar bears had just been inside here for so long that they'd forgotten how.

They looked very very bored. They looked restless, and complacent, and edgeless. They were beautiful, with their clean black fur and big black eyes, but they had no purpose. And that diminished them.

I sighed to myself, but inside the glass-walled bear cave, even a small sigh echoed. I heard it bounce around the room, multiplying with each wall, until finally it was loud enough to catch the attention of the guy I heard coming up the hallway.

"Great," I muttered to myself, and grabbed my bag. I should have been paying closer attention, I couldn't get _caught. _This was about the only place I felt any peace whatsoever these days, and if they upped the security, things could get tricky. I was _not _going to get caught.

I made it to the exhibit entrance with no problems, but just as I got my hands on the door to the outside when I heard someone yell "Hey!"

A flashlight snapped onto my face, pointed at me by a broad-shouldered, curly-haired man in blue guard uniform. His name was Emmett McCarty—he'd been working here since the first time I ever came, a year and a half ago. And he was not going to stop me.

"Hey, come here," he said, striding toward me. "What are you doing in here?"

"Sorry." I turned directly into the beam of his flashlight and smiled at him—I saw him stumble a step back as he was hit full-force by my face, my mouth, my perfect blonde hair falling across the low-cut front of my shirt. I knew exactly how pretty I was, and I knew _exactly _how to use it as a weapon. It had gotten me out of some tight spots before, and I was banking on it to get me out of this one.

"Miss—I—you shouldn't be—" he fumbled, trying to remember what he was supposed to be doing here. Poor boy.

"I have to go," I said, flashing him another smile. "See you later, Emmett."

I slipped out the door and was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

I had almost two days till the next show, and Esme had been calling. I had no excuses not to go home. Which didn't, of course, mean that I wanted to.

But what the hell. I was hungry anyway, and it wasn't like there was anything to eat in New York City, unless I wanted to try pigeon blood. I had a high tolerance for the blood thirst, it had never been a huge problem with me—I could go maybe a week or so without eating, but then I'd have to slip off to Jersey or Connecticut to find some foxes or otters. It worked okay—but if I went to visit the family, I could get a much better meal. The Catskill Mountains were chock-full of bears, deer, anything you could want. It was quite a dilemma. I felt like a college freshman standing in her dorm with a phone in her hand, trying to decide whether to call home and ask for money.

In the end I found myself running up the neck of New York state, with some reservations, but more excited to see my family the closer I got, I hadn't made it up there in awhile. And I loved them. I might have been going through one of my annoying independent phases, but I did love them, I did, I adored them. They were the only people in the world who came close to understanding me, what with the vampirism and all. Carlisle, Esme, Jasper, Alice—and yes, even Edward, though he did drive me crazy. I guess I missed being driven crazy sometimes. What else were siblings for?

They had a good place up in the Catskills, I would admit that. I called it a cabin but it really wasn't very cabinlike at all—it was more like a mini palace that happened to be made of wood. It blended very well, considering how big and palacelike it was—you almost couldn't see it until you came right over that mountain, covered over with a canopy of treetops. And even if someone saw it, so what? It looked like some rich family's hunting lodge, which was what it basically was, so it was perfectly innocent. As long as nobody found out exactly how we planned to do that hunting.

I kicked my shoes off as I came in the door—I knew how Esme hated it when we tracked mud into the house, and these weren't even shoes I wanted to be wearing. No heel whatsoever, big, ugly, chunky boots. Yuck. It wasn't like I _couldn't _run in heels, but for a journey of more than a hundred miles, they did get a little impractical. I mean, you get that heel stuck in a rock fissure or something, and it doesn't matter _how _graceful you are, you're going to fall flat on your face. I did not like to fall on my face.

"_Rose!"_ Alice hit me like a linebacker, knocking me back into the door with the force of her hug. I swear, I never saw that girl coming. "I saw you coming! What are you doing back? How was the show?"

"The show was great," I gushed. _Alice _understood about fashion. "I'm headlining for Versace now, did I tell you? I get to wear all his best pieces. There was this dress I wore last week, oh, Alice, you would have loved it, it was this gorgeous silver wraparound thing, not even gray, it was _silver, _it was so beautiful. And I'm back because I miss you guys, of course."

"She's lying," Edward said casually as he walked past the entryway. I _hated _it when he did that, picking my thoughts out of my mind! Especially when they were ones I didn't want broadcasted to the general public. "She's just hungry and tired of eating raccoons."

"Listen a little harder next time!" I yelled after him. "I'm _also _back because I missed them! If you're going to eavesdrop you might as well get the whole story!"

He was gone already, and I was left grinding my teeth and compulsively checking my hair. I'd actually stopped halfway down the mountain before I'd gotten here and pulled out my handheld mirror—making sure my hair looked all right, that my eyeliner was still intact. I felt stupid doing that kind of thing, but I knew I couldn't stand to look bad around Edward. It was a compulsion. He was the only guy who'd ever really ignored me, he was the only guy who didn't care when I batted my eyes. He had never _wanted _me. Sometimes I sort of hated him for that.

"Rosalie, dear," Esme took a step back as she saw me, her expression puckering to a frown. "You've lost weight. You're not _eating._"

"Of course I lost weight," I said impatiently. "How do you think I'm fitting into those dresses?"

"Maybe you _shouldn't _be fitting into those dresses," Esme said, taking my hands. "You're not a size zero, Rosalie. You're a real _woman, _you have _curves—_you don't _look _right as a size zero, not like those other walking skeletons."

"I think I look great," I said defensively, smoothing my shirt even though it was just a gray pullover for a soccer team I'd never been on. Suddenly I missed my army of assistants telling my how angelically beautiful I was. I liked those people. "Where are Carlisle and Jasper?"

"Right here." Jasper had a habit of showing up next to you without making any noise, which was what he'd just done. Good thing none of us had to worry about heart attacks. "Nice to see you, Rosalie."

"Nice to see you too, Jasper," I said, and for once I meant it. Jasper and I got along. There was a reason we were pretend brother and sister, a similarity of features and a similarity of thought. Maybe we had different purposes to our directness, but we had that directness, and we had a certain willingness to do what was necessary. Plus Jasper was the only one who could calm me down. Just standing next to him now, I could feel the peace seeping out from him, Jasper taking my emotions into his hands and giving me what I knew I needed, what I never had without him. If I actually could take heroin, I imagined it would feel something like Jasper.

"Carlisle's out hunting," Esme told me. "Why don't you go find him and get something to eat? You're too thin, honey."

"I'm not too thin," I said automatically. "But I am hungry."

---

"This is not how I taught you, Rosalie."

Carlisle never yelled at us. I couldn't remember a single time he'd raised his voice outside of the ER, he just didn't seem to have it in him. Unfortunately, his disappointment voice was a million times worse than anything he could have yelled. It was just the way he _looked _at you, and you could feel your stomach sinking, and you could suddenly see your actions in a totally different light.

"I'm being safe, Carlisle," I told him as I dragged the deer out into the middle of the clearing. No sense in being wasteful—I'm sure it would taste good to someone, even without blood. "I'm being _so _careful."

"There is no way to be careful enough," he said firmly. "You're a _model, _Rosalie. You are in the public eye. You know very well how irresponsible that is."

"I'm just having fun," was my lame defense. "No one's going to _know._"

"Rosalie," he said, and there was that disappointment again, landing on me with a thousand pound weight. "You need to stop."

I was sure hitting my rebellious phase late in life, wasn't I? I'd never really been a problem teen—my human parents knew how much of a blessing my beauty was, and they'd repaid it by doting on me my entire mortal life. It had been awesome. I'd had no reason to rebel.

Carlisle was really the first person to start telling me there were things I couldn't do. That there were things I _shouldn't _do. That just because I was beautiful and powerful and could do whatever I wanted, didn't mean that I _should. _That some things were just wrong.

Well, sometimes that wasn't what I wanted to hear. "I'm not going to do stop," I said stubbornly.

"This is not going to end well," he told me, and he was probably right. He was usually right about things like this.

"I don't care," I said. "I'm not stopping."

He shrugged and turned back to his own dead deer. Carlisle was also a big believer in letting us make our own mistakes. It was just that I was the kind of girl who couldn't change course, not even if I saw I was heading right over a cliff. I _wouldn't. _It was my cliff, I chose it, and it wasn't like I had anything better to do than crash. I wasn't going to come home, not right now. I wasn't going to come home to Alice and Jasper cuddling, to Carlisle and Esme reading poetry to each other, to Edward not loving me. I wanted to be back where people _did_ love me, because upsettingly enough, when I was with my family, all I felt was lonely. When I was in New York, I was still lonely, but at least I wasn't alone.

Carlisle stood up straight again suddenly, and for a minute I thought he really _was _going to yell at me. There was tension in his face, and concern, and it was a few seconds before I realized that he wasn't even looking at me at all. "There's someone here," he said, his eyes focused suddenly over my shoulder.

"Yeah, I heard someone coming," I said, concerned because he was concerned. "I thought it was just Alice or Edward or—"

"Or Dimitri?" Carlisle suggested, in the tone of you-should-have-told-me-about-this.

"Or Dimitri," I said, sending a silent sorry look back. I turned and saw him standing there, tall, dark, and irritating. I stifled the urge to punch him. I wasn't really all that great at punching anyway—I was really more of a sneak-and-poison sort of girl. Very Shakespearean.

"Hi," Dimitri said. "Miss me?"

"Are you _stalking _me?" I yelled. I didn't have Carlisle's patience.

"The term is tracking," he said. "And yes."

"Carlisle!" I yelled, pointing at Dimitri as if to say, look, problem! Please fix!

He smiled very very slightly, looking up at me. "Rosalie," he said mildly. "Dear. This is what we call consequences."


	4. Chapter 4

AUTHOR'S NOTE: It has come to my attention that I've been misspelling Dimitri's name for…well, four fics now. Apparently it's actually "Demitri", and thanks to dyingimmortal for the heads up, I've been misspelling it. To which I have to say: oops. And that's basically it, because it would be way difficult for me to track it back through four fics and change it. Sorry, Demitri! You just get to stay misspelled. Apologies :).

---

"Leave me alone!" I yelled back over my shoulder at Dimitri, who had refused to get less than three feet away from me ever since he'd showed up. Currently, he was trailing me back to the cabin, while Carlisle followed a good distance behind. Probably to make sure there was no homicide.

"Not going to happen, _mia stella,_" he said. "I was sent to solve the problem, and the problem is you. Get used to having me around."

"Somehow I get the feeling that could be _annoying!" God, _I hated the Volturi! They were so _bossy _and _clingy, _and they thought they could just _control _everyone all the time. Also I hated them because I wanted to be them. Bossiness was okay when it was my bossiness, and otherwise, absolutely not.

I did a quick bit of wondering about who was next in line in the Volturi regime. Technically, Aro, Marcus, and Caius were supposed to be able to live forever, but I think we only thought that because no one had yet keeled over dead. I had met them once, too, same backpacking trip, and I swear I could see right through them. They seemed to be just—fading. I wondered what would happen if they faded all the way. I wondered who was next in line, and more importantly, whether I could seduce that person. I think I would like to be queen of the world.

I wondered if it was Dimitri. I knew he was one of the more high-ranking of their minions, I just didn't know what the pecking order was exactly. As I swung around to yell at him some more, I did a quick up-and-down assessment, trying to figure out whether he would be a good king to my queen. Whether I could stand him for eternity, and whether it was worth it to pretend.

The answer was an immediate no. "I would _so _not marry you," I let him know right as I figured it out, and I hoped that confused the hell out of him. The problem was, I wasn't in love with him. After decades with Carlisle and Esme, I knew that it was going to have to be love. Nothing else was going to be nearly good enough. Trophy wife used to be my ultimate goal, but not anymore.

"Excuse me?" he asked calmly, shoving his hands in his pockets. He didn't seem overly concerned about marriage being off the table. I was almost offended.

"Let me help you," I said. "Here's the gist of any conversation we might have for the rest of our lives: leave me _alone!_"

"Not going to happen," he repeated.

"Carlisle!" I pleaded as he caught up with us. Not sure exactly what I intended Carlisle to do, but he always had a solution for everything. Trouble was, I knew what his solution was for this.

"I'm sorry, Rosalie." He walked straight past me and opened the door, kicking his boots off as he got inside, and he gave me a smile that said he would absolutely help me, when I was ready to make the right decisions. "You're going to have to deal with this on your own."

---

Looking on the bright side, at least Dimitri wasn't trying to kill me. He very well could have been—the Volturi weren't exactly known for their tolerance and kindness. Basically their philosophy was, if it's a threat, kill it. If it _looks _like a threat, kill that to, if it sounds or smells or seems at all like a threat, it was _dead. _They'd lived a long time on that philosophy.

I was pretty sure Dimitri wasn't killing me because he thought I was cute. I was okay with that. As long as he kept not killing me, he could think whatever he wanted. In the meantime, though, I mostly just wanted him to go away.

I'd at least convinced him that he should sit in the audience during my second runway show. There was just no good way to explain him backstage, though everyone I knew now thought we were dating anyway. That was what happens when a tall, attractive vampire man decides never to leave your side.

I knew I wasn't going to get rid of him for very long—I didn't actually have any long-term plan for solving this problem—but I knew that if I could just get _away _from him, I could buy myself maybe an hour or so, and I _needed _an hour or so. I hadn't been alone in almost a week now—he even followed me to my apartment every night. He'd been sleeping on the couch.

So I went out through the roof. I'd been scanning the backstage area for steps or ladders all night, but there didn't seem to be any. No problem. I just climbed. I waited till no one was in the room, got my hands on a few uneven boards, and spidered my way up to the skylight and out. Being a vampire meant you were good at _everything—_including climbing walls.

Now that I thought about it, being a vampire was actually perfect for me, after all. I mean, I wouldn't exactly have picked it if I'd had a choice, and there was the downside of possibly being damned for eternity. That was a bummer. But hey, I had to admit, the perks were wonderful. I got to be beautiful for my entire life, I got to be eighteen and thin and blonde. There were people who would sell their souls for that _on purpose. _It was good for me. I was a natural vampire.

That did not mean my life was perfect, however, which was annoying. None of my vampire abilities were particularly helping me out with my current dilemma, except for of course making it easier for me to climb onto roofs. They weren't making me happier—they weren't making me calmer. I knew what I needed for that.

Some people went to day spas. Some people kickboxed, some people turned the music up and danced. I went to the zoo and watched the polar bears.

I'd kept away for more than a week now, afraid of that guard and what he might have done after I left that night. Had he told anyone? What would they do even if he had? Up the security in the polar bear exhibit? Pass around a picture of me? _Yeah, good luck, _I smirked to myself as I vaulted over the fence by the peacock exhibit. I'd just end up on half these guys' locker doors, anyway. Being a night guard was a job for people who were lonely. Lonely people were the only people who were ever up this late at night—if you had somebody, these were the hours when you were with them.

Well, whatever. I had polar bears. I poked my head inside the polar bear room cautiously, searching the shadows for anything that wasn't bears. Just as I did, though, the scent of human hit me hard and fast, specifically the scent of human sitting _right there _on the bench. Great.

Just as I pulled back and got ready to run, though, the person stood and walked quickly forward, one hand out to me. In the white-blue reflection of the water, I could see that it was _him, _it was Emmett, no mistaking that one. Funny how even though he was human, a thousand times weaker than me, my breath still caught as he stood, blocking out half the tank with his shoulders. There was just something very colossal about him, something that extended even beyond just his size. He would be a difficult person to ignore.

"Stop," he said, and there was no _question _of ignoring him now. I stopped for no reason, even though he couldn't literally stop me. I stopped anyway. "Hey, sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"You didn't scare me," I said stiffly. I still hadn't moved. "What are you doing here?"

"I work here." I hated the smile that I could hear in his voice. He thought I was funny? _He _thought _I _was funny? Really?

"Were you _waiting _for me?" I demanded, crossing my arms. "What, did you call security? What's the plan here?"

"I am security."

He kept doing that. I suppose it was my fault, I kept setting him up for those kind of answers. "Are you going to have me arrested?" I'd decided to ignore it and move on. "Have you been sitting there _every night _since you saw me, just sitting here waiting to nail me?"

"Nail you?" he said, with that same light, innocently amused tone.

I winced in the darkness. Bad choice of words. "To catch me," I corrected determinedly. "You've been waiting to catch me. That's so _lame. _Don't you have better things to do with your time? Hallways to walk? Animals to guard? What do they _pay _you for around here?"

"I didn't call anyone," he said.

"Oh," I said, deflated. "Well, you better not!"

"Okay," he said, and this time I could _see _the smile, flashing white against his silhouette.

"You're not afraid of me, are you?" I demanded, vaguely offended.

"No," he said matter-of-factly. "Should I be?"

Good point. It wasn't like he knew who I was. Still, most people were afraid of me even on a human level, intimidated by me. If not afraid that I would eat them, then at least afraid I would yell at them. "I guess not," I lied.

"So," he said. "You want to tell me why you're here?"

Well, that was a problem. Because _I _didn't even know why I was here, and even if I did, I wasn't going to explain it to some random human. Except that I sort of wanted to. For absolutely no reason that I could think of, I felt strangely off-balance around this guy, like I desperately needed to explain. Like I wanted his approval, of all things.

I never did have to explain, though, because my hour had run out. I heard Dimitri come in the side door, and it was a good thing that door wasn't alarmed, because we seemed to just be in an out of it this week, didn't we? "Hi, Dimitri," I said heavily.

Suddenly the atmosphere changed completely. For some reason it had been okay when it was just me and Emmett, he didn't mind me being here and I wasn't threatened by him. Dimitri was a different story. We both tensed like we'd suddenly been jerked up by a puppetmaster, and I could see Emmett's hand going to his hip. He was just a security guard, he couldn't have a gun, right? Maybe a tazer? I guess it didn't make a difference.

"Rosalie," Dimitri said. "That was very clever. And annoying. I wish you'd stop postponing the inevitable."

"And what's the inevitable?" I said acidly. "You kill me?"

"Hey, whoa," Emmett said, realizing for the first time that something bigger was going on here. "_Kill _you?"

"Who is this?" Dimitri said, focusing on Emmett. Bad bad bad. "Don't tell me you finally got hungry, Rosalie."

"Don't be stupid," I snapped. "He's just a security guard."

"Oh, well then do you mind?" he said, walking a little closer, sizing Emmett up like he was deciding which steak to order. "I haven't eaten in awhile."

"Do I _mind?_"

"All right, what is going on here?" Emmett asked uneasily, clearly weirded out by the hunger on Dimitri's face. This was not going to end well.

"I mind!" I yelled loudly, grabbing Dimitri's arm. "I _mind, _okay? We're going now."

"Rosalie," Dimitri complained, but he let me pull him backward toward the door, and then push him out of it ahead of me. Good thing he'd decided to behave, because in a throwdown between me and Dimitri…well, I still wasn't sure who would win.

"Hey," Emmett said right as I was about to follow him out. "Are you going to come back?"

I stared at him, surprised, unsure. This was the second time tonight he'd managed to floor me, and that just didn't _happen. _Things did not shake me. Things did not catch me off guard. I just wasn't used to it. "Coming back?" I repeated lamely. "I don't know. Maybe. Probably. I don't know."

"Well, you should," he said simply, and I was almost frozen to the spot. "What's your name?"

"Rosalie," I said before I could stop myself. Well, if he hadn't reported me by now, he probably wasn't going to. Right?

"I'm Emmett."

"I _know,_" I said, and I shut the door behind me.


	5. Chapter 5

Of course we didn't sleep. We were vampires, it was one of those perks I'd been talking about, but at the same time it could get a little irritating. If you wanted to interact with humans, you had to _pretend _to be asleep anyway between the hours of midnight and six in the morning, and if you don't have anyone to hang out with it does get a little boring. I used to hate it when I was with the family—lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the noises from the couples' rooms. They weren't exactly subtle—they couldn't be. Sometimes Edward and I would end up playing chess or whatever, but that would always disintegrate into us glowering at each other across the board, angry about how much of a couple we were _not. _Were never going to be.

It had been slightly better ever since I'd come to New York—at least I was alone at night, which was not my favorite, but it was definitely better than being the fifth wheel. But here I seem to have stuck myself in that same situation again, hanging out with a man who I was not in love with and had nothing to do with at night, and it was _awkward. _I'd been going into my room and shutting the door at about two, usually, Lord knows what he was doing out there, but I really didn't want to know.

I was so on edge about it, though, that when the phone rang, I almost fell off the bed. My catlike reflexes saved me at the last minute, as I snagged the bedpost and swung myself back like a particularly ungraceful cat, grabbing the phone off the hook on the last ring.

"Hello?"

"Rose!" It was Alice's soprano on the other end, sounding actually surprised that I'd picked up. Alice didn't have a very long attention span. "Hey! I'm glad you answered, I have to talk to you."

She had that authoritative I-know-your-future tone in her voice, so I untangled myself from my bed and tried to pay attention. "Oh yeah? What's up, Alice?"

"I have two things to tell you," she said briskly. Alice had gone through a phase where she intoned everyone's future in a mystical fortune-teller voice, but she'd long since grown out of it. Getting your future from Alice now was like listening to the local news weatherman. "First—if I tell you to go see the polar bears, does that make any sense to you?"

"Yes," I confirmed. "As a matter of fact, it does. Do I have to go see them right _now?_"

"I guess you can if you want," she said, nonplussed. "All I'm going to tell you is that you're supposed to be there at three o'clock this morning."

"But why—"

"Take my word for it, okay? Also, please make an effort to look cute."

"What, like I'm normally hideous?" I had a truly hair-trigger sense of offended vanity. I probably couldn't count the number of time the words _are you saying I'm fat? _had come out of my mouth.

"Look extra cute," she said, unaffected. "And nothing impractical. No heels."

"Whatever," I said, annoyed by her refusal to give me a straight answer. She did that sometimes. "You said you had two things to tell me?"

"Well, yeah," Alice said. "The other thing is that Esme says you should come home this Saturday. It's Edward's birthday, we're going to have a little party, I think."

"Edward's birthday," I said flatly.

"Yes."

"Right. Tell her I'll try to make it," I lied.

There was a knock on the door—the kind of insistent, three-rap knocking that demanded immediate attention. I heard Dimitri getting off his couch, and I did _not _want him answering my door. People already thought we were dating—what would they think if he showed up at my door? Yuck.

"Alice, I have to go," I said quickly. "Love ya." I hung up and dashed to the door, barely sliding in front of Dimitri as he reached for the doorknob. "_No, _Dimitri. Absolutely not. Go hide in the kitchen or something!"

"Hide in the kitchen?" he repeated, affronted. "What, you're embarrassed of me now?"

I peered through the peephole, putting my hand on his chest and pushing Dimitri back. "It's Gianni," I hissed. "Get _out _of here."

"Sure, fine," he grumbled. "I'll hide in the kitchen. Because that's not suspicious at all."

"Mr. Versace!" I said with an abrupt bright smile as I opened the door. "How _are _you?"

"Is there someone here?" Gianni wanted to know, craning his neck around my doorframe.

I was just getting ready to lie and tell him no when Dimitri dropped a pot loudly on the kitchen tile. I ground my teeth quietly at the back of my mouth—there was no possible way that had happened on accident. I _had _pots and pans, of course. Just like I had a bed. Necessary props. But it wasn't like they were going to be sitting around anywhere they could be knocked over.

"You caught me," I said with an even faker smile. "Haha! Good job. Dimitri…darling. Come meet Gianni Versace. Gianni, this is Dimitri," I said as he came strolling casually out of the kitchen, innocent as a summer morning.

"Oh, I didn't know you were having guests, Rose," Dimitri said, coming to stand beside me and slipping his arm around my waist.

The smile felt plastered onto my face, shrinking and hardening like a clay facial mask. "We're not dating," I said through my teeth.

He raised his eyes but didn't say anything, probably because I looked so very angry. That meant that either I was telling the truth, or it was quite a troubled relationship indeed. Either way, he didn't want to get involved. "Rosalie, I hope you don't mind me dropping by so late like this," he said instead.

"Not at all," I said, stepping backwards. "Please, come in."

"Thank you," he said, unwrapping the scarf from his neck. "I'm supposed to let Mitch call you about this, but I didn't want to. It's important to me, and I was in the neighborhood anyway. Quite a _nice _neighborhood. How do you even afford this apartment, Rosalie?"

"By being a famous model," I said with a mercury smile. I wanted him to get to the point.

"We've started talking about Paris fashion week," he told me. "Not all the details are nailed down yet, of course, it's still a ways off, but there are a few things that I feel very strongly about. My models are one of those things. I'd like to offer you a chance to headline the Paris show."

My general state of being was complacency. Complacency with regular spikes of anger, maybe, but mostly I was just used to getting my way and being satisfied with getting it. I wasn't often _happy. _So I didn't immediately recognize the emotion when it thrilled up my spine, had to take a few seconds to identify it. Wait, was I—_happy? _Was I—_proud of myself? _How very strange.

I opened my mouth to say of course I would, and thank you, thank you so much, I love you, but I was cut off by Dimitri saying, "Sorry, she can't."

I nearly killed him right there. Boy, wouldn't _that _have been a giveaway. "Don't listen to him," I said, using all my meager powers of self-control to stay put. "Of course I will. I'm honored, Gianni."

"Nope," Dimitri disagreed blithely. "She's not going to do it."

"Who is this guy again, dear?" Gianni asked, doing that delicate, classy eyebrow raise that immediately made one feel like a beetle. "Boyfriend? How much exactly do you like him, Rose?" Strangely enough, Gianni was one person Dimitri wasn't going to be able to charm or threaten. Even with those chiseled cheekbones, he was getting nowhere—Gianni would be far more likely to be disgusted by his ratty sneakers and wide lapels.

"Please," I said. "Ignore him. He won't be around for long, and he _certainly _is not going to affect my decision. I'm going to Paris."

Dimitri's voice had dropped a few decibels and had velveted, a man pulling the last card and knowing this was the end of it. "Rosalie Hale, I have put up with _so much _from you, you know I have. I have let you get away with so much. That is over. This ends now. Tell the nice man that you're not _going _to Paris, and you're not going to walk in a show ever again. Your career ends now, or we're going to start getting serious."

"Is that a threat?" Gianni asked, stabbing a finger toward Dimitri. "Is this man _threatening _you?"

"Oh, is there still some question about whether I'm threatening?" Dimitri said. "Let me clear that up. She gets out of the business right now, or I'm going to kill her."

"_Kill _her?" Poor guy. He really had no idea what he'd stepped into, did he?

"I have to," he shrugged. "I don't _want _to, but I'll do it. I didn't want it to come to this, Rose."

"Yeah, that really _sucks _for you," I said venomously. "Your life is so hard, Dimitri. You want to get serious? Please. I'm sick and tired of babysitting you anyway."

"I'm calling the police," Gianni said decisively, heading for the door.

I was about to tell him no, don't, stop, everything's fine, but honestly he might as well. It would get him out of the apartment, and I would have a convenient excuse set up later when I had a dead body to explain. Gee, officer, I don't know, he was coming toward me and I was so _frightened. _I had to _defend _myself. "Please do that," I told him instead. "Tell them I'm in an abusive relationship and, um, what's the term—domestic disturbance. Tell them there's one of those."

"Oh, I'm not leaving without you," he said, and one hand locked around my wrist before I could protest. "Come on, Rose, we're going. You can stay with Antonio and I tonight, we have _excellent _security."

"I could just kill him too, Rose," Dimitri warned, crossing his arms and watching us leave, deciding whether to stop us. "It would be his blood on your hands—and I know how you hate that."

"Sure you could," I said, unimpressed. "So much for your precious secrecy."

Of course, now I'd gotten rid of one problem in favor of another problem entirely. Though Gianni had the advantage of being a person that I could actually stand, it _was _getting closer to 3:00 AM, and apparently I had an appointment. Fortunately, I was excellent at this game.

"Oh, wow, look at the time," I said, after a few rounds of drinks—faked rounds on my part, of course. The house plants were being watered with vodka tonight, which was probably not healthy. Then again, it didn't seem all that good for humans, either, and most of them were still upright. "I should really get to bed. Things to do tomorrow."

"Rosalie," Gianni said, reaching across the table to take my hand. He had to dislodge Antonio's dead-weight arm to do it, the guy had already passed out. Long day. Lots of vodka. "I don't know entirely what was going on back there, but I want you to promise me you're not going to go back to that man."

I rolled my eyes. "Don't worry, Gianni. That's not going to happen."

"You might think you have to put up with some bad things, just because you're in love with someone," he told me, moving his arm back under Antonio, propping him up, "but there's going to be someone someday that's going to be perfect. You don't have to settle."

"You mean like Antonio?" I smiled, watching his fingers find their way into his partner's hair, blond-brown and long enough to start curling at the back of his neck. "I don't know, Gianni. Maybe there's just not someone for me."

"Well, don't just give up," he said reproachfully. "You're young. You've got time."

His arm supporting Antonio's arm, his hand in Antonio's hair. I hardly knew what I was saying. "I've been looking for someone to share my life with," I said tonelessly. "I've been looking. I just don't think anyone is looking for me."

"Finding something you're not looking for is one of the best parts of life," Gianni told me, undiscouraged. "Maybe you're someone's surprise."

"Yeah," I said. "Maybe." Only things never worked that way for me. "Well, I guess I'd get some sleep. See you in the morning." By which I meant, I'm going to go to the Central Park Zoo even though I have no idea why and I'm going to go hang out at the polar bear exhibit for who knows how long. 'Sleep' was a flexible term for me.

I paused in the doorway, looking down at my four-inch Manolos. _No heels, _Alice had said. Damn. What the hell was going to happen at three o'clock that I couldn't wear heels to? Was I running a marathon? What? "So hey," I said as casually as I could manage. "Do you happen to have any…tennis shoes?"


	6. Chapter 6

The polar bear tank, it turned out, had a leak. Well, maybe more like a break. Maybe more like someone had put their fist through it, someone unnaturally strong who could punch through that reinforced glass like it was cardboard. I wasn't stupid. I could take a hint.

Dimitri knew there were only two things that I cared about in the whole world at the moment, and he wasn't stupid enough to take a swing at my family. Largest coven outside of the Volturi, that was what I'd heard—and with talents like Alice's and Edward's? Forget about it.

But I had isolated myself. I had taken myself away from them, I had put myself out here on my own, and on my own I could be taken down. _Brilliant, Rosalie. Brilliant. _

So I went into the polar bear exhibit with my hackles up and my paranoia set on high, watching listening waiting for Dimitri, he had to still be here. It wasn't like him to drop a bomb and not want to pick through the aftermath.

The water sloshed around my ankles, soaking into my flat-soled red boots. Fabulous. I'm sure aquarium water was really great for suede. I was worried about the bears, though, honestly, because I could see the water pressing against the broken glass as I came closer, piling up against it with a slow creak until—with the sound of a bad car crash, a thousand dropped dishes—it imploded.

Water washed over me up to my waist, no _hope _for those boots now, and I braced my feet against it so it wouldn't knock me over, the sudden wave of it with bits of glass and fish heads, old bones. The female bear, Ida, swung her head around at the noise, letting out a low, annoyed growl, but Gus was going to take a more active role. He was already padding down to the "shallows" where there had been water ten seconds ago, looking down at the gaping lack of glass as if he'd just figured out what to do with it. He put one foot carefully down into the waterless pit, then the other one, and he knew _exactly _where he was headed. _Out. _

"Oh no," I said, rolling up the sleeves of my nice dress shirt. I suppose I should have listened to Alice's advice about dressing casual. "No, you don't. You're not going _anywhere._" As sad as it was to see them cooped up in their tiny artificial Alaska, I couldn't say much for the safety of the streets of New York. For everyone's sake, it was really best that they stay _in here. _

Gus didn't seem intimidated by my threats, though, and kept coming straight on towards the missing glass. Gus was a seven hundred pound polar bear. When you're a seven hundred pound polar bear, there's not a lot that can beat you out in a game of chicken. Gus was _used _to being run away from, especially by these puny, pink humans with their frozen fish and their long-distance prods. He wasn't expecting me to keep coming at him. No way for him to know, of course, that I wasn't one of those humans. Not even close.

As we met in the middle of the damp empty pool, he veered suddenly and tried to dodge around me, but I wasn't having any of it. I stepped quickly forward and grabbed his muzzle with both hands, trying to control his head like you would with a horse. I wasn't afraid of him. This seemed to shock him at first, but even in a zoo polar bear there were specific instinctive responses to people grabbing your face. He surged forward and I barely kept my feet, swiping at me with a paw the size of my head. Behind me, I heard Ida's dissatisfied moan break into a roar.

And against the roar there came the sound of a sudden, alarmed human yell—I blocked Gus's paw with my forearm and turned to see Emmett standing there with his flashlight pointed in at us, horrified at what I'm sure he thought he was seeing. I did a quick reassessment of what this probably looked like, and swore quietly to myself.

"Hey, don't worry!" I yelled back to him. "Don't, um, don't worry. I'm fine! I'm okay!"

But he was already climbing into the broken tank, tazer in hand, ready to _rescue _me, stupid boy. _I'm a vampire! _I wanted to yell. _Don't worry! I'll be fine! _I had to admit I was a little impressed that he was charging right in here with all his mortality—it took quite a human to face down a polar bear.

That didn't mean it was going to work, though. I turned as far as I could, getting my hands under Gus's jaw and pushing his head up, teeth as far away as possible. It was going to be difficult to explain how I wasn't dying here, wasn't it? But the priority was keeping _anyone _from dying, so secrecy be damned.

"Get out of here," he was instructed me, bringing his walking talkie up. "_Go, _run, get _out _of here! This is McCarty in the polar bear exhibit, we've got a _situation _here. I need all guards to the polar bear exhibit _now, _and someone call the trainers, the bears are _loose._"

As Emmett got within polar bear range, I freed up one hand to shove him away—it was obvious he wasn't going to go anywhere by himself—but as I did, there was suddenly someone behind me saying, "So how's that modeling career going, Rosalie?"

It was Dimitri. Standing back there in the exhibit with his arms crossed and his head tipped to the side, so unwelcome and so unexpected that I completely what I was doing. Gus didn't forget anything—he took advantage of my slack grip to bull past me to get to the man with the tazer, slashing at him his inch-long claws.

Emmett didn't scream. I don't know why he didn't, it was the kind of thing that you screamed about, but he just fell without a sound, crumpling to the ground with four long slashes diagonal across his chest. Gus got there before I could and bit down on his shoulder, barely missing his neck, paws coming down on his ribs right where the slashes ended. I could _hear _them crack.

I hit the bear with all my strength, which was unnecessary. I was just suddenly panicked, and _furious, _and very concerned about the blood that was inking the remnant puddles of water red, staining it in thick clouds out from his veins. Gus went skidding back and slammed back into the wall, stunned and offended. He'd just been being a polar bear, and I knew I couldn't blame a _bear_, but it was hard when I saw Emmett struggling to breathe, bubbles of blood on his mouth.

"Oh dear," Dimitri said sardonically, as I dropped down to my knees next to him, pulling him up, tipping his chin back, trying to keep his airway open. "Look what's happened."

I hardly heard him. I was too busy pressing my hands against the bleeding slashes as if I could trap the blood back in, watching Emmett's eyelids lurch sickeningly closer to closed, his eyes rolling frighteningly back to white. He couldn't die. I couldn't let him die. I looked at him, black curls and bright green eyes, spots of color high in his cheeks, and there was something so familiar and important about him, somehow impossibly irreplaceable. I think I'd known it the first time I'd ever looked at him—the strange blue-sparked static electricity between us, for no reason I could think of. For absolutely no reason at all.

I looked at him and I knew that I was not going to let him die.

"Rosalie," Dimitri said impatiently. He'd meant to provoke me but I don't think he'd imagined it going like this. "Rosalie, are you _listening _to me?"

I was not listening. I was realizing that I was not going to let him die. I looked at him and I knew that, I looked at him with blood on his face and I knew that if I could save him I would never be alone again. And I knew that Dimitri didn't matter, of course not. And modeling had just been a stop on the road.

"Dimitri," I said, and I was surprised at the clearness of my voice, the steady finality. I guess some things just came out right. I guess it just all went right, when it finally had to. "You don't have to worry about me. Consider your mission accomplished, you won't have to worry about me again. But please shut up."

I swept my hair over one shoulder and bent down to Emmett, opening my mouth to him—he was torn to pieces, there was no way he was going to make it unless I changed him. I stopped halfway down, hit by the smell and the heat of his blood, pumping out of him far too quickly and _far _too close. I could almost taste it on my tongue. I closed my eyes and tried to get control of myself—_why _hadn't I gone hunting yesterday? I couldn't do it. I wasn't stupid, I knew I couldn't do it, I didn't have enough control. I would drain him dry and I would only regret it later.

Right. Different solution, then. I leaned farther and slid my arms under him, picking him up with some difficulty. It wasn't that I _couldn't _do it, though he was absolutely huge—it was just that the closer I held him, the stronger I could smell his blood. The more it started seeping into my shirt and my jeans, the more it started dripping into my boots. I didn't know if I could make it a hundred miles. I didn't know if I had that in me, to carry him all the way to Carlisle. I did know, however, that I was going to give it a damn good try.

"What are you _doing?_" Dimitri demanded skeptically, still standing in front of the entrance. This had gone not at _all _how he'd planned, but he didn't need to worry. He was going to get his way. He already had. I just didn't care so much about him anymore.

"I'm saving his life," I said impatiently. "Goodbye, Dimitri. Get the hell out of my way."

---

I was tapping my nails on the bedpost. I had long nails, and I'd been doing it for almost ten minutes straight. They were making a lot of sound. I'm sure it was irritating. I couldn't stop.

I just didn't have a lot of experience with finding healthy outlets for nervous energy. Usually I just yelled at people or glared regally at them, but neither of those outlets seemed appropriate. The only person I could have yelled at would have been Carlisle, but that would be counterproductive. Not to mention ungrateful—after all, he'd agreed to turn Emmett based on nothing more than the look on my face when I showed up on his doorstep.

"Is he going to be okay?" I asked for the thousandth time. We were both sitting there in chairs on the edge of the bed, watching Emmett twist against his restraints, still silent. He hadn't screamed once, not even when Carlisle had bitten him and the venom had gone straight to his veins.

"I'm sure he'll be fine, Rosalie," Carlisle reassured me patiently. "Look, his wounds have already bound together. You can't tell because of the blood, but they're all healed, see?" He flicked Emmett's shredded shirt aside with two fingers to show the smooth, paling skin underneath, and Emmett flinched hard at the touch, wrenching painfully away.

"Carlisle," I said. "I think I love him."

"I thought so," was his reply. We sat there for another few minutes in the silence, watching Emmett. I don't know how long we'd both been sitting here—days. More than one day. Possibly as long as a week. A million years. I had no idea. It was torture to sit here so close to him with his blood all over the clothes and bed, but I had refused to go hunting. I couldn't leave him till the moment he opened his eyes.

"Rosalie," Carlisle said finally. "He won't remember anything when he wakes up. He'll be disoriented, he'll remember nothing but the strongest moments from his human life—his family, maybe, or his death. It's all going to be very much of a blur for him for a very long time. He's going to need your help."

"I'll be here," I said. I knew that this came as a surprise to him—I wasn't exactly the poster child for commitment and responsibility. But he believed me. He'd been here before. "I don't care if he doesn't know who I am. He's going to need me."

"Good," Carlisle said. "Then I think you'll both be fine."

He came awake like a swimmer breaking the surface, gasping air, eyes flying open, violent forward motion carrying him up against the restraints, sitting up as far as he could until he hit them and slammed to a stop.

I was there instantly, coming to his side with my hands on his face, pulling his chin up so he was looking me in the eyes. I remembered this part—the pain, the dizzy confusion, the violence of everything that you'd just become. I made him look me in the eyes.

"Emmett," I said. "Look at me. It's okay. You're all right, we saved you. We're not going to hurt you. You're not going to understand, but I want you to trust us. You're safe."

He looked up at me with his new red eyes, brighter than the dried blood on his neck and collar. New-blood red. His breathing was already slowing, and his hands were wrapped around my wrist. He wasn't fighting me at all.

"Rosalie," he said, and I forgot to let go. I forgot myself in looking at him, and I oh God, I hoped that he loved me back. Because I wanted to be looking at him for the rest of my life. I couldn't think of anything else that I wanted to do. And he was looking right back.

"I remember you," he said. "I remember you."


End file.
